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Thursday, August 31, 2017

So last night I decided that I would blow the dust off the moth trap and stick it in the woods. I drove round to the woods and duly set up everything except the cable that connects the battery, which I had apparently left at home. Doh!

Leaving the trap set up and trusting that any passerby in the dark would not bother the trap I rushed back home (2 mins) to grab the cable. Rummaging around in the garage I couldn't find the damn thing so I did what anybody would do in the circumstances - I grabbed the generator re-borrowed recently for a bioblitz and the mains MV trap top end and bolted back to the woods.

Naturally the first thing I found on my return was the missing cable that I had put inside the moth trap. It only helps to be clever when you can do it at both ends! Anyway, the long and short of it is that I ended up running an actinic in the woods for 1.5 hours and an MV with no bottom end on the coast, where the generator noise would be less likely to bother anybody. If I'd done this through the year I'd be "finished" by now! I'll do it again after a suitable break now that I know it's possible to
use the generator without the police showing up. There should still be a few moth species left in the tanks.

I did hope I would get an Aphodius rufipes, which is a frequent light trap visitor in the garden, but I have no complaints. No boost to my horrible beetle tally though. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was wandering along the path looking at something in a pot and getting tripped up by a hedgehog. Sorry, buddy!

I should also credit here one of my neighbours, Blair, who caught the Tipula while we were chatting next to the MV and successfully transferred it from hand to pot. It won't be the last T.paludosa, but it was the first!

(insert: just spent half of lunchtime watching a cracking white wag feeding on the beach. no chance I can get a half point?)

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

It would have been a shame to see out the year without finding at least one penis-headed fly, and so I was a happy camper yesterday to find this nice Tomosvaryella on the edge of the woodland near the shore. I am pretty sure it is T.littoralis but I need a better look at the tergite hairs now I've read the RES key (the only other two species recorded in Scotland all have dark femorae anyway).

Pipunculidae have a lot going for them in terms of value. First, lets get it out of the way, they look like little peni. It's childish but it's true. Second they are unbelievable fliers. Pipunculidae when netted will happily (?) hover in a space inside the net no problem - absolutely fixed on one point in space. They share with Syrphidae a vena spuria and maybe this is an adaptation for hovering. Thirdly, they are endoparasites, and everyone loves a good endoparasite, don't they? Their chosen host group is homoptera and they have been used for pest control for this reason. You can see from the pic below that this girl has a very nasty surprise for some poor bug!

Pipunculidae - the big headed flies

habitus

ovipositor!

Another mushroom made its way onto the list too, meaning I've made my target of 90 spp. by end of August. 910 by end of the month and I'll be happy enough with that.

For once it was nice weather on the Bank Holiday so I thought I'd spend a couple of hours on the patch. Despite sharing the site with many grockles I still managed to collect some potentially interesting stuff. Everyone who asks thinks I'm collecting butterflies when they see the net, they've never heard of a dipterist (not sure I could get a butterfly in the pooter). Anyway the results are from a previous visit plus an overlooked springtail which were hopping about on the edge of the saltmarsh. It turned out to be Anurida maritima a common marine springtail around all our coasts. Looking back I can see that Seth recorded it in March on Skye.

Saturday, August 26, 2017

I know I only posted yesterday but progress has been made - so here I am back again already!

Still no images for you, though I've taken plenty today. The weather behaved quite well so I zipped down to the beach road and swung my net at anything that looked interesting. Most of them are still in pots, but I managed to ID a few this evening.

But first, a dung beetle fell onto my book as I was reading in bed last night. I hadn't realised my bedding needed washing already (I only washed it in February so it should be good for months yet) but if it's attracting dung beetles...

I added a few new plants and watched a Stoat bounding along the road, hunting through the verges before bounding off a bit further. Plenty of Rabbits in the area, so it won't stay hungry for long. Stoat is my 11th mammal in the square so far this year. I had hoped to hit 10, so I'm happy with that. Even though I seem to be the only person in the village not to have seen a Hedgehog in the local woods and Red Foxes wander within 200 metres of my boundary, hence 13 is entirely feasible.

Moffs are currently hurling themselves at my lit window. The midge mesh is keeping them out, but a few new additions have been gleaned. I think I need a Tipula key next, the craneflies are positively swarming at the moment.

I pulled a big, fat green psyllid off an Alder leaf this afternoon. Not too many on Alder and, it being a female, I quickly narrowed it down to Baeopelma foersteri with the toothed edge to the mahoosive terminalia. Managed a cool pic too, but you'll have to just take my word on that (for now).

Also noticed a microfungus speckling some dead Yew needles. Under the microscope the spores clinched it as Guignardia philoprina, one I've seen before. Right, here's ze numbers showing today's additions -

870 - Aphodius rufipes (a dung beetle) - Lifer

871 - Musk-mallow (plant)

872 - Sun Spurge (plant)

873 - Wild Teasel (rare up here!)

874 - Stoat (mammal)

875 - Dilophus febrilis (fly with swanky leg spines) - Lifer

876 - Guignardia philoprina (microfungus on Yew)

877 - Pterostichus madidus (beetle)

878 - Lime-speck Pug (moth larva on Sea Mayweed)

879 - Foxglove Pug (moth - forgot to add this from coupla weeks back)

880 - The Sallow (moth of unmarked ab flavescens form)

881 - Square-spot Rustic (moth)

882 - Baeopelma foersteri (pyllid on Alder leaf) - Lifer

883 - Rosy Rustic (moth) - Lifer

17 to go by the end of the week and I'm suddenly feeling a bit more optimistic about attaining the 900 species mark before the end of August. Right, one last look at all the mystery craneflies on my midge mesh and I'm off to kip. Without any more dung beetles, hopefully....

Friday, August 25, 2017

I had seen boletes in a bad state of repair on the way to my son's school before but finally got hold of one in good enough shape to identify (no doubt correction will follow now!) as the Red Cracking Bolete, Xerocomellus chrysenteron

So this lovely fungus will become the official 900th species, no matter what happens to the list after I put it through a heavily critical review.

The rest of the recent additions, which could be read about on my own blog ...

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Apologies for the lack of updates of late. I rather cleverly broke my laptop and it's taken me a wee while to source another. Now I'm on a shitty Chromebook that won't do what I want it to do - which includes uploading images. I'll suss it soon enough, no doubt. Anyway, can't complain too much, I only paid £20 for it!

I haven't added very much to the tally the past coupla weeks, the one day of good weather I went to sea in my boss's RIB where we played with dolphins, saw a MInke and passed through swarms of Blue, Moon and Lion's Mane Jellyfish. None of them were in my square though, meh.

Finally added a few ridiculously overlooked species (don't laugh, please...) and a handful of lifers too. Not looking too likely to hit the 900-mark by month's end though, which is what I was hoping for.

So, without images, here are the latest additions. Hopefully it'll be normal services resumed before too much longer.

The psocid, according to NBN, is the third record for Scotland. It was probably the easiest bit of keying through ever! And my images (that you can't see) match those online. Sweet! Highland Recorder has been notified, I have the body in alcohol, should he need that too. Click hereto see what Kellogg's Barkfly looks like, it's such a wee cutey! :)

Still got loads of stuff in pots or on pins. Maybe I can hit 900 before the week is out after all? Hmmm...

Monday, August 21, 2017

A weekend heavily dominated by a wonderful 3 hour session patrolling mayweed on the shore. Every slow trek along the stretch turned up something new, including two fantastic flies. The first, which I thought was a Gonia, I now realise isn't - it's Tachina fera. Since both are things I have really wanted to see for a long time I somehow transposed them. What a bizarre mistake to make. Ironically the less scarce Tachina is new for VC85 whereas the Gonia wouldn't have been.

Anyway ... the second , which is new for the county at least, and possibly new to Scotland, is the soldierfly Chorisops nagatomii. Both species of the genus are southerly in distribution but nagatomii is a late summer species and in all references consulted so far has no Scottish records. Once I establish the species ID is good I'll cross check to see if someone else has pipped me to the post. (An aside on this is that I didn't realise it was anything interesting until I got it under the microscope. No voucher, no record!)

Friday, August 18, 2017

With the first day of school (my son's first day ever at school) summer is now officially over. Fortunately August's usually a good month for flies and I'm looking forward to the ivy bursting into flower.

A couple of days of picking up the pace has seen a spread of additions. Nothing spectacular but a lovely new wasp for me yesterday and a couple of missing hovers. Some things in pots too so should be able to creep over the 870 mark.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Ooof, been a while since I updated - three weeks in fact. I've only been out a few times and managed to scrape up another 50 odd species including ten that were lifers for me. First lifer was Bombus hortorum, yeah the REALLY REALLY common Garden Bumblebee. I'm not really very into bees (ha, can you tell?) but I keyed this one through and instantly came up with a joke. Would you like to hear it? You would? Cool. A Bombus hortorum walks into a bar and asks for a beer. Barman says, "so...why the long face?" Hahahaa, I crack me up! I'll get me coat....

Bombus hortorum alongside its mimic Volucella bombylans

Best find was, of course, The Beast of Boggy Creek. You can read about that on my PSL Blog here.

Finally managed to bag an odonata with several Common Hawkers Aeshna juncea whizzing about the hotel grounds and a handful of Scotch Argus Erebia aethiops have been seen this month too. Moths are around, but I've hardly paid them any attention. Stuff like Udea lutealis, Argyresthia goedartella, Stenoptilia bipunctidactyla and Brown China-mark disturbed by day and the larva of The Spectacle, Phyllonorycter oxycanthae, P.sorbi, Lyonetia clerkella and Grey Dagger noted on vegetation/in their mines.

Grey Dagger larva advising me not to eat it...

Best insect by a country mile though was this bad boy. Spotted whilst ambling along the path at the top of the beach. And yeah, it stopped me dead in my tracks!

Cynomya mortuorum - the one with the amazing yellow head!

I didn't even know blowflies came in a yellow-headed version, all I could think of was that it looked like a tiny Tachina grossa. Luckily there's only one yellow-headed blowfly, so I didn't even need to pot it up to ID it. Less stunning was this maggot in a mine

Agromyza nana larva in its mine on White Clover

Sticking with inverts, I was happy to find a Dicranopalpus ramosus in the bathroom a week or so back. Last December I discovered there were several on a wall at the other end of the hotel complex which were the first ones for NW Scotland and the Hebs. So it is nice to see that they survived the winter and are still on site. Most NW site in Britain (maybe the world? I'd have to check!)

Dicranopalpus ramosus, sadly not caudatus but still brilliant for up here

Added quite a few vascular plants to the tally and finally topped 250 species in the square. Still loads more that I'm overlooking (grasses, sedges and rushes being the obvious ones) and I'd be surprised if the true tally for the square wasn't nearer 350 species. Common Yellow-sedge was keyed using the BSBI book and was a lifer for me. Hybrid Woundwort was found 35 paces from the nearest Marsh Woundwort clump and growing right alongside it's other parent, Hedge Woundwort. I'm counting this towards my target of 1000 species as it is a stable hybrid which often exists in the absence of one or other parents. Plus it has its own number in Stace, which as we all know means it's good to tick :)

Hedge (left), Hybrid (middle) and Marsh (right) Woundworts

Interestingly, the Hybrid Woundwort smells just as disgusting as the Hedge (Marsh is odourless) yet is still in flower (Hedge has just about all gone over now). I couldn't find any Hybrid amongst the Marsh, just with the Hedge. That's probably significant, but I'm not that clued up on plant genetics so shall leave it at that. Out of the woods and up on a hilltop I stumbled into this stunner

Field Gentian - still the only species of Gentian I've ever seen

Finally, on to the fungi. Autumn is fast approaching and fungi are starting to become more prominent. Unfortunately for me, I'm shite at them. Proper shite. Many Devil's-bit Scabious leaves are infested with Ramularia succisae, which was new for the tally. Other than that I spent a lot of time staring in mild horror at the multitude of waxcap-type things and dung fungi that are beyond my capabilities. I did recognise this one though

Claviceps purpurea - Ergot in some 'grassy stuff'

Time for the list!

802 - moth - The Spectacle (larva)

803 - bee - Bombus hortorum - PSL Lifer (yeah yeah, get over it...)

804 - dragonfly - Common Hawker

805 - butterfly - Scotch Argus

806 - amphibian - Beast of Boggy Creek (yeehaw!!)

807 - plant - Bulbous Rush

808 - plant - Heath Rush

809 - plant - Common Yellow-sedge PSL Lifer

810 - plant - Flea Sedge

811 - plant - Crested Dog's-tail

812 - fungus - Ramularia succisae (on Devil's-bit Scabious)

813 - moth - Udea lutealis

814 - moth - Phyllonorycter oxycanthae (larva in mine)

815 - sawfly - Fenusa dohrnii - PSL Lifer

816 - plant - Hybrid Woundwort

817 - fungus - Claviceps purpurea (Ergot)

818 - plant - Montbretia (previous plants were all Potts' Montbretia, so had to hunt this out)

Monday, August 14, 2017

Nice to visit the patch after quite a long gap. Several new species after a couple of hours in the field last thursday. Was hoping to get to 200 diptera for the patch by the end of the year which may still be possible (167 currently). Weather has prevented any further moth trapping so perhaps a waiting game for the late summer/autumn migrants.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

My Picasa has come down with the sickness. It's decided to stop showing me photos, including editing them. This is a source of some considerable annoyance since I use it every day to process 100s of photos. Sigh. Anyway, I'll have to make do with unedited photos until I can get something sorted out. This is a Potato Capsid

Potted potato pest

The brief moment I had it right before I got it wrong

I initially identified it correctly then misidentified it subsequently somehow then had that corrected by Maria Justamond via iRecord. Thank goodness for vigilant verifiers!

And my third Sarco, which I'm well happy about, processed before Picasa came down with the sickness. Or it could be anything really. I'll wait until a grown up comes along and tells me what it really is!

The good news is I crossed the 850 threshold ahead of schedule and have my eyes firmly fixed on reaching the final tenth. Exciting times indeed. Actually I haven't mentioned it much, but Fallopia convolvulus was my 200th lifer of the list. Have to be pleased with that!

Friday, August 4, 2017

A small mixed bag over the last couple of days with two lifer flies which also seem to be new-for-county despite being fairly common. This is par for the course - there are more undiscovered flies in Fife than in the Amazon basin. Well, probably ...

Last night was a definite bonus as I headed out for a walk while looking for evidence of any bird migration. As I returned home empty-handed I noticed a movement on the rocks below me and jammed into a Common Sandpiper. I've heard calls a couple of times that made me think Common Sand, but never laid eyes on the beast. In all probability these were different birds anyway with passage birds fairly common along the coastal rocks here but never hanging around for long. It's a nice one to catch though as it's an "importance of being there" kind of species. You blink, you miss it.

After grilling some mushrooms for three days -a long time for grilling mushrooms - I finally found what I was looking for in the Collins mushrooms and toadstools guide. An unlikely but welcome result! The Wood Woollyfoot is a fairly distinctive species but despite narrowing it to family my eyes apparently just missed the appropriate pictures every time. Anyway, it's all done now. Phew!

Throwaway factoid: 1 in every 4.5 species has been a lifer for me - not a bad return!

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Still progressing with the square, now up to 874 though still relying heavily on the moth trap and moths in general. Amongst these since last time were two new for the garden (and the square) Hypsopygia glaucinalis, a distinctive micro moth and Clay Triple-Lines.

Clay Triple-Lines

Hypsopygia glaucinalis

In addition to these a few more plants were found, most of them beginning with 'E', two Willowherbs, 1 in Wanister Bog together with Common Spike-rush and a few Marsh Horsetail well away fromthe big patch of Water Horsetail, and the other Willowherb, American, an increasing species, found as a pavement weed. The latter I've had in the garden before but not this year. The other plant is another increasing Alien, Cut or Fern leaved Bramble.

Rubus laciniatus

Throw in a fungus Gnat (Sciara hemerobioides) and thats my lot for July.